The firm used machine learning to run 200,000 models, mining data
on team and individual player attributes, to help forecast
specific match scores. Goldman then simulated 1 million possible
variations of the tournament in order to calculate the
probability of advancement for each squad.

The tournament bracket below shows how Goldman sees the World Cup
unfolding. Note that the numbers next to each nation - which
dictate whether they advance over their opponent - represent the
predicted, unrounded number of goals scored in each possible
iteration of the tournament, based on machine learning results
applied to countless scenarios.

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"We are drawn to machine learning models because they can sift
through a large number of possible explanatory variables to
produce more accurate forecasts than conventional alternatives,"
a group of strategists from Goldman's international research team
wrote in a client note.

Here are the key takeaways from Goldman's data:

Brazil is expected to win its sixth World Cup
title, defeating Germany in the final by an
unrounded score of 1.70 to 1.41

While France has better overall odds of
lifting the trophy, its expected meeting with Brazil in the
semi-finals has it falling short of the title match

England is expected to make it to the
quarter-final stage, where Goldman says they'll lose to Germany

Spain and Argentina are
forecast to underperform, both losing in the quarter-finals

Russia isn't expected to make it out of the
group stage at all, despite its role as tournament host

Goldman sees Saudi Arabia as the surprising
team that will advance out of the group stage, ahead of the host
nation

With all of that established, football (soccer) remains a highly
unpredictable sport, with many more variables in play than even
Goldman could assess. Which is why the authors of the report
offer this disclaimer at the end:

"We capture the stochastic nature of the tournament carefully
using state-of-the-art statistical methods and we consider a lot
of information in doing so," they said. "But the forecasts remain
highly uncertain, even with the fanciest statistical techniques,
simply because football is quite an unpredictable game. This is,
of course, precisely why the World Cup will be so exciting to
watch."